Seattle's Shattered Rave 'Family' Seeks Answers to Killings

By JESSICA KOWAL

Published: March 30, 2006

The candykids, juggalos, groovers and burners are uniting here with fresh purpose this week. Dancing to the synthesized music that binds them together, planting memorials of candles and their signature beaded bracelets, they join together not to rave, but to mourn slain friends.

One woman had a rainbow of yarn woven into her hair. Two men had faces painted in red and black. A man in a suit and tie had a pinkish mohawk. Dozens of others wore baggy clothing or unremarkable dress. All showed up on Tuesday at a spring-green park with a spectacular view of the Space Needle.

Exhausted by sorrow and lack of sleep, they seemed dumbstruck that the community of ravers, who follow a mantra of ''plur,'' for ''peace, love, unity and respect,'' had been punctured by senseless violence.

Six friends were killed early Saturday, when, the police say, Aaron Kyle Huff, 28, barreled through the front door of a small house on Republican Street, armed with a semiautomatic handgun and a 12-gauge shotgun.

At 7 a.m., a few dozen ravers were in the house to talk, drink beer, sleep, watch cartoons or otherwise decompress after attending a zombie-themed rave elsewhere.

Mr. Huff, an unemployed onetime pizza deliverer, had been invited to the house party by others at the rave. Without warning, he collected the guns from his truck parked nearby and swiftly killed four men and two teenage girls with gunshots to the head and chest, the King County Medical Examiner said Wednesday.

Confronted by a police officer, Mr. Huff committed suicide. The police have not determined his motive.

To the mourners in Volunteer Park and to those who lingered at the house on Wednesday with their tents and trinkets, it was unbearable that Mr. Huff had brutalized the self-described ''family'' of music-loving slackers, students and young professionals who often exchange beaded bracelets, called candy, as a friendship gesture.

''These are peaceful people,'' said Wally Hansen, 24, a rave promoter from Tukwila whose face was drawn and pale, with dark circles under his eyes. ''Why would he do this to people who accepted him, who welcomed him into their own home?''

The victims, ages 14 to 32 and with rave nicknames like Sushi, Deacon and Chinadoll, were familiar faces at spirited parties attended by hundreds of people in the Puget Sound region. In warehouses, art spaces or nightclubs on Friday and Saturday nights, dressed in clothing that defines them into smaller cliques like candykids and juggalos, they dance energetically to musical genres like house, trance and jungle and stop to rest in ''chill rooms'' tuned with quieter ambient music.

The dancing is powered by energy drinks, candy and snacks, although many ravers concede that alcohol, marijuana and Ecstasy are part of the scene.

The rave community here had been mostly invisible to people who were not part of it. After the killings, talk-show hosts and columnists, intent on finding lessons, have focused on the youngest victims, Melissa Moore, 14, a ninth grader from Milton, and Suzanne Thorne, 15, a 10th grader from Bellevue.

Many people have criticized what they see as lax gun-control laws, pointing out that Mr. Huff was convicted of a misdemeanor in 2000 after shooting a moose sculpture in his Montana hometown, Whitefish. He was allowed to keep the two guns used in the shooting here.

Other critics have faulted what they describe as permissive rave culture, lax parents or lenient laws that allow teenagers into clubs where alcohol is not served.

Kyle Moore, Ms. Moore's father, refused to blame anyone but the gunman. He said he and his daughter, nicknamed Chinadoll, trusted other ravers to protect her.

''She just loved meeting the different people, seeing the different costumes, and she loved the music, the beat,'' Mr. Moore said in a telephone interview. ''She was brighter than the sun out there. I just would love to know why she felt that she couldn't call me to pick her up.''

Most likely, the two teenagers were waiting for the county bus to restart its downtown route at 7 a.m., said Nicole Loerke, 17, of Everett, who, like other candykids at the park, had a peach-colored Care Bears backpack. Ms. Loerke started going to raves last year, she said, when she had no friends in high school.

''They accept you as a person, the virtues and values you hold,'' she said of the ravers.

She said that she noticed Mr. Huff at the rave and that he stood against a wall with folded arms and did not mingle in a millieu where people greet one another as close friends within minutes of meeting.

''I asked him, 'Is there anything wrong?' and he turned his head,'' Ms. Loerke said. ''I said, 'If you need anyone to talk to, I'm here to listen.' He looked right at me, and said, 'Thank you.' He must have had some screws loose.''

Outside the Republican Street house, the ravers pitched tents on the grass and stayed in shifts to protect a growing memorial of candles and candy bracelets strung with words like ''plur'' and ''luv all.'' The neighbors have given them hot chocolate and offered the use of bathrooms.

Josh McPharlin, 24, a rave promoter, looked at the mementos on the sidewalk and said: ''I enjoyed these people. It's just unbelievable that I won't ever be able to spend time with them again.''

Photos: Mourners at a service held Tuesday by the Church Council of Greater Seattle for victims of a shooting spree at a party after a zombie-themed rave. (Photo by Elaine Thompson/Associated Press); Aaron Kyle Huff committed suicide after killing six, officials say. (Photo by Flathead County Sheriff's Office, via Associated Press)